Right Here Waiting...

Oh.
   My.
      Word.

Life is so busy. There has been so much going on, and I knew it had been an eternity since I was last here; since I even last visited a single blog or really thought about posting. I have all of these fantastical ideas for posts swimming around in my head, and yet there seems to be no time or inclination lately to actually sit down and put them into print. I just wanted to tell y'all that I am still here. And this blog and all of the bloggers that I usually adore reading posts from are always right here waiting for me to take the time to share with them. What has kept me away from you? Well. These are the top ten things (in addition to Mother's Day, Father's Day, 4th of July, Lefty's first prom, our last dance recital, cheer try-outs for Lefty and Boo)...

1. Finishing another year in kindergarten. Finishing always seems to take so much out of me!
2. Beginning preparations for the new year in kindergarten. It will be my eighth year! Wow!
3. Professional development meetings for new things happening in our state regarding education.
4. Staying home and spending time with all four of my kiddos. For the first time ever, we chose to have them during the first part of summer, rather than in the middle. I am really liking it this way.
5. Having and recovering from surgery. Nothing serious...just a boob job and a touch of liposuction. I am at three weeks post-procedures, and I am loving the results of both!!!
6. Getting to be an Aunt for the second time! Weston is so precious, and Carson is the best big brother!
7. Working on the garden that would be. Chris keeps saying that this is just not the year for my garden. It has really sucked. I still have hopes that it will just be a late bloomer. Literally.
8. Becoming the mother of a 16 year old daughter. There are no words. 
9. Throwing a Sweet Sixteen bash. Hilarious!
10. Preparing to get a business license for my mesh obsession. 

I do have pictures, I swear. Uploading them is just another thing that I have not yet gotten around to. But I will. Promise. In the meantime, enjoy the ones that I do have!

SAHM (only for the summer :-( )

When the girls were little, I was a stay-at-home-mom. I loved it. EVERY MINUTE. They were my life, and that is how I wanted it! I would give anything to be able to stay home again. To have dinner prepared more often than not; to have after school snacks ready; to be able to pick them up in the car rider line; to take them lunch on occasion; to not worry about who would get them where they need to go after school or to appointments; to be able to take care of wifely things that get neglected now; to be involved in community things and school groups; get my drift???

As it is now, we eat out during the school year more than we are at home for meals; the girls ride the bus or stay after school (with hopes that someone is able to bring them a snack); they eat sack lunches every day; doctor and dental appointments send me in a tizzy because I have a hard time finding someone to get them there for me when I can't get away from work (it doesn't help that I work 30 minutes out of town); the house stays a wreck except for the day after the cleaning lady comes (so one or two days every other week); I never get to stop by to visit Hubby at work or have lunch with him; PTO? What's that? I have hinted and asked, but no luck. Anywho...

So summertime is a tease for this SAHM wanna-be. I stay busy doing things with the kids and trying to get as many appointments in as possible so that I don't have to worry about them during the school year. For the month of July, we have Loo and The Boy, so that makes it extra fun. We have been trying to cook new foods, so each kiddo gets to choose a meal a week. Some of the things we have tried are...

French dip roll ups and poutine (steak fries drenched in gravy and topped with cheese)

Sweet and spicy bacon wrapped chicken with twice baked potatoes

Loaded baked potato pancakes

Bacon Ranch Pasta Salad (served with burgers)

3 Cheese Chicken Penne, Green Bean Casserole, and Baked Zucchini Chips

Summertime pretend SAHM time also lets me get a lot of this done...

And it's never far from my thoughts that my time as a SAHM is just a dream and I have to get back to this...

Today I Made...

SALSA!!! From my garden veggies. Oh my. We all love salsa, and homemade is the absolute best! This is what I did:

• Bought some supplies. If you haven't seen the new Ball Freezer Jars, you better run right to Wal-Mart (or just click here) and grab some. They are the bomb-diggity! So is the canning kit that I snagged for a mere $6.97! It had that awesome jar grabber thingy, a plastic funnel, a magnetic wand for grabbing those pesky jar flats and lids, and another little gizmo that checks for headspace and releases bubbles in the jar. Steal of a deal, I'd say!

• Laid out said supplies. They took up three counter tops, so this is just a peek at the organized mess!

• Prepared the jars and lids in boiling water. 

• Blanched 22 small to medium sized tomatoes so that they would be easy to peel. The skins pop in the boiling water, then they peel right away...no knife necessary! I love the bright color that they turn after blanching too... 

• While the tomatoes were blanching, Boo was chopping up the other goodies...2 small onions, 4 jalepeno peppers (also from my garden), and a lime. Well, the lime wasn't chopped, but it was hand-juiced. 

• After peeling and coring the blanched tomatoes, I added them to the onion, pepper, and lime juice in the blender. I spiced it up with half a package of salsa mix, 2 tsp cilantro, 4 Tbsp chopped garlic, and a quarter cup of sugar. It was too much for one blender, so we did it in two batches. 

• The salsa could be considered finished at this point, if you just wanted to put it in a container in the fridge or freezer...but I wanted to can it, so it needed to be boiled together for a minute or so. It looked nasty like tomato soup after boiling! 

• Finally, the fun part...ladling into jars and processing in a boiling water bath. I had no idea how much salsa I would have, so I prepared all of my jars. Only half were needed, but hey, that's 5 pints of homemade, homegrown salsa!!! Can't beat it and it is beautiful in the jars!!! 

• Last step...MAKE LABELS! I adore my label maker. It is very handy in the kitchen, and I am thinking I could use one at school.

What Have YOU Been Doing?

It's been a busy, on the go kind of life around here lately. And when I say on the go, I mean we are never home! We all pass each other in the doorway as some are coming home and the others are heading out. It was expected for May to be horrendous, but I really was hoping for some down time once school got out! Not so. Since April, here are a few of the things that my family and I have been up to...and things that I will be blogging about in more depth ASAP!

Gardening...that was in week 2

Fishing...

Playing with my favorite nephew!

Learning a lesson about rX instructions...

Enjoying the water...as much as possible!

A birthday getaway for my Hubby...

a new cat!!!

Boo 8th Grade Cheer Camp!

Baseball with The Boy.

Lefty Sophomore Cheer Camp!

That's a small sampling of our lives lately...what's been on your agenda???

Flying High

Flying is not one of my favorite things. Granted, it definitely gets you farther faster than driving, and odds are that one is more likely to be injured in a car accident than on an airplane...but still, not one of my top ten list of fun things to do. The fact that we flew to Orlando for vacation with four kiddos that have never even been near a plane compounded the lack of fun just a bit. However, once we got on board and took off, the looks on their faces was priceless! All four loved it, even though a couple of them were terrified at first. Everything went great, just a slightly bumpy landing when we were coming home. All in all, well worth flying and arriving in 4 hours as opposed to driving 20 hours!

 Terrible picture quality above, but this was our kid crew, wide awake and ready for a new adventure at 5:15 in the morning! Below, the crew is descending upon the airport, luggage in tow.

Because we were flying on The Boy's 10th birthday, the kids all got to go into the cockpit before our flight. The Boy sat in the pilot seat as they got a pre-flight view of what goes on in the air. All six of us 'earned our wings' that day! The flight crew was awesome, and they even said happy birthday to The Boy in the pre-flight announcements! Kudos to Delta Airways!

 We arrived safely, and had another first...a tram ride through the Orlando airport.  Our trip was chock full of firsts...and so much fun! It is awesome to me to still see wonder in the eyes of my 'babies.'

 Above and below: Waiting for the rental car. Silly girls.

 Home at last! The house we rented. It was such a cute little bungalow! We probably could have used something a bit larger for our family of 6, but as little as we were there, it was great!

There weren't many chances to enjoy the pool and fire pit at our temporary home, but it sure was nice! It definitely helped to entertain the littles while we did laundry.

By the time we got to the house and figured out where everything was and put all of our stuff away, it was quickly time to leave again to celebrate our safe landing and more specifically...The Boy's birthday...at the Rainforest Cafe in Animal Kingdom! It was the perfect end to the beginning of a perfect family trip that only got better as the days passed.